1. Field
The present application relates to an alert system for notifying a user of the status of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional forgotten-operation notifying system is known, which includes a vehicle-mounted notification device that communicates and is connected with a portable terminal carried by a user to transmit information on an operation forgotten in a vehicle by the user to the portable terminal via a center or through direct communication (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-240349). When in the forgotten-operation notifying system, the portable terminal registered in advance receives such information on the forgotten operation from the vehicle, the portable terminal notifies the user of the information.
In the above-described conventional forgotten-operation notifying system, however, the vehicle-mounted notification device merely performs determination regarding a forgotten operation of a user in accordance with a predetermined determination condition and problems may be caused accordingly, which are that the intention of the user cannot be reflected and that it is thus impossible to properly distinguish the status based on the user's intention from the status based on the forgotten operation. When, so as to deal with such problems, a move of the portable terminal to the outside of the range of the direct communication with the vehicle is used as a condition for starting to determine the presence or absence of a forgotten operation and the notification from the portable terminal to the user is performed via a center, communication may be unsuccessful, depending on the status of the vehicle or the portable terminal. When for example, the vehicle is located in a place where the communication with the center is impossible, such as an underground place, or the portable terminal is left in the vehicle, the notification to the user may be unsuccessful.